Can you imagine a world where access to spiritual information was blocked by the government? What if you stopped by an internet cafe, only to find your favorite website was banned by a public web filter, or your friend’s natural health website was blocked because it mentioned ‘spiritual healing’ techniques? A disturbing movement to censor perfectly legal spiritual information is growing (right now in the UK, but other countries are poised to jump on the bandwagon), and will continue unchecked unless people become aware of the problem and protest it. Find out more about the UK filter, and how it will affect you, below.

About Dara

Dara Hayes has a long-held interest in esoteric spirituality and ETs, and a strong wish for alternative spiritual subjects to remain visible and freely accessible to people all over the world. She writes and creates graphics for The Conscious Reporter, and occasionally posts spiritually-themed graphics on ReachingLight.com.

This is such a wonderful infographic as it depicts clearly and in a very easy way to understand the direct consequences and ramifications of such censorship. Not only does it have dire consequences to freedom of speech, and more control by the state, but it has extremely serious consequences for spirituality, for the right to grow and awaken our consciousness. And this is a natural human right – one, we should all have available.

This site, because of its content, would be totally censored in the UK, it may even be already the case!

Yet, the articles published are so eye-opening, mind-blowing, and brings about so much to reflect on the dire state of the world. It’s like the veil in front of our eyes is being removed, and we can see and question the reality of what is being fed to us.

I find this gives me a lot of hope, as knowing allows us to no longer be ignorant and to take steps to change a situation.

You may want to look at the petition this infographic points out, it was started by a Jaime Tanna (from the UK) whose alternative health site was blocked by the filters installed at Caffe Nero for example.

“As a business owner in East Dulwich, South East London, I had a taste of this draconian filtering mechanism two years ago. I went to my local Caffe Nero to have a coffee and catch up on some business administration.

Together with my wife, we run a holistic business which also mentions “Spiritual Healing” amongst other key services such as Reiki, Reflexology, Yoga and Indian Head Massage. I was stunned to find that I could not access my own website as it was blocked. The message on the screen told me it was classified under “Alternative Spirituality/Belief”, and access was denied through their web filtering system called “Blue Coat”.”

He is not the only one who has been affected:

“Christos, from Greece, had a similar experience five years ago when he went with some friends to MacDonald’s in Camberwell, London in 2008. He says the following:

“We had our laptops with us. When we tried to visit one of the websites that at that time was offering free online courses…. we received the message ”alternative spirituality” and we weren’t able to access it. We were puzzled at the time and surprised. I had just arrived in London and such an attitude did not seem one of a developed country at all.”

Yes Caffe Nero, Mac Donald are businesses, and it can be argued that they have the rights to decide what can be accessed from their premises – this is not well-known at all.

I’ve personally emailed both Cafe Nero and Mac Donald to inquire about their internet filtering system and why do they consider “Alternative Spirituality” something to be censored, but I’ve never got a reply to them. I’ve emailed again, but to no avail. I also know, I am not the only one, as several of my friends did the same and none of us got an answer.

A bit of censorship with this latte and Big Mac? No problem.

Now why is this happening?
Why was the term Esoteric Material, Web Forums included in the list of default-filtering system provided by ISP companies and made known by Open Rights Group in the first place?

It’s not like it was a coincidence or an oversight – saying it is not happening, is actually not right. It is already happening. And because it is not legal, but done by businesses (but pushed on by the government) no one knows for sure what is being blacklisted, where to access such blacklist, and how to get off the blacklist. There is no due process, no oversight.

Unless you already knew about these websites, and checked them from home (if you are still able to do so, and who knows until when), you would have no idea that they even existed.. And that is incredible censorship already happening..

And what a smart move by the government – not making it into a law.. But having corporations enforce it..